Employers have a warning for the Class of 2026: Next spring’s graduate-hiring market is likely to be even worse than this year’s.
Six months out from graduation season, more than half of 183 employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers rate the job market for the Class of 2026 as poor or fair. That is the most pessimistic outsee since the first year of the pandemic, according to the survey, which is widely seen as an early signal of graduate hiring each year.
A cooling job market is darkening that outsee. In recent months, employers from Amazon.com to United Parcel Service have revealed plans to cut thousands of jobs. The latest is Verizon Communications , which, according to people familiar with the matter, plans to cut 15,000 jobs over the next week in its largest reduction ever.
Companies declare the uncertain economic outsee has pushed them to hire more conservatively, and many are giving priority to recruits with some experience as opposed to fresh-from-college graduates . More executives are also speaking openly about the potential of artificial innotifyigence to bring deep job cuts and take over more tinquires that new graduates are traditionally tapped to do.
For college seniors, that means they are also competing against junior workers who have been recently laid off. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.8% in June, greater than overall unemployment that month and the highest June level for recent graduates in four years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis.
Overall, employers declare they expect a 1.6% increase in hiring for the Class of 2026, down considerably from their plans for the Class of 2025 last fall, according to the semiannual survey. College recruiting for full-time jobs typically kicks off in the fall or earlier, and by the spring, employers have a clearer sense of where hiring will land. In recent years, employers have revised their spring plans downward from the fall survey.
Annika Swenson, a senior at the University of Iowa, stated layoffs at companies like Amazon have created her more anxious about the search. The sheer number of applicants to positions and the rapid-relocating pace of AI have also increased her stress level.
In a year, it is possible “there just wouldn’t be a person necessaryed to do that job anymore,” she stated of some enattempt-level positions. “That’s just wild to me.”
Swenson, 22, is studying marketing and this week alone has applied for about five to 10 jobs. She kicked off her search over the summer. “I just necessary to obtain one,” she stated.
The early-career job-search platform Handshake found that in August, full-time job postings had declined more than 16% year-over-year, and there are an average of 26% more applications per job. More than 60% of 2026 graduates stated they were pessimistic about their careers.
Christine Cruzvergara, Handshake’s chief education strategy officer, stated employers are falling into three buckets. Some have pautilized hiring amid economic uncertainty, some have laid off staff in the name of efficiency and some are growing modestly. Fields seeing job growth include healthcare, education and manufacturing, she stated.
Meanwhile, students are applying “to hundreds and hundreds of jobs. They just shoot off application after application,” she stated. This strategy can backfire: Many employers are turned off by generic applications, she stated.
Giavanna Vega, a former enattempt-level recruiter and internship program director at Automation Anywhere, which streamlines business processes, described the hiring environment as at a standstill.
“Becautilize we’re in a state of uncertainty, they don’t know where to invest,” she stated of companies’ recruiting strategies amid tariffs and AI developments. That is coming down harder on new graduates: “They don’t have the training.”
Vega, based in San Jose, Calif., stated she was laid off from her recruiting role in 2023. After a contract role in tech that finished a year ago, she has worked as an esthetician as she applies for corporate jobs.
It has been a competitive search. “People that have more experience are willing to take enattempt level positions becautilize they can’t find anything,” she stated. Worn down by many rejections and “ghosted” applications, she has focutilized on her skin care business more recently.
Write to Linddeclare Ellis at linddeclare.ellis@wsj.com
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